YENGO NP – 2-4 November 2024
John G is obsessed with documenting Aboriginal art sites and entering them into a database that the NSW Government maintains, ensuring that the GPS co-ordinates are accurate. There are over 100,000 sites recorded dating back to the 1800s.
Of course, we’d all like to find a site that hasn’t been recorded, but that’s harder than you might think. We’ve come across caves/overhangs where we thought “wow, this is a perfect site, wonder why it wasn’t used”. It’s so hard (for us) to find a site that hasn’t yet been documented, so for the time being we’re concentrating on sites that are well known, or have been identified in the past.
Our group started off with John G & me, Jim C, Vamsi, Liz and eventually Min. Jim, Vamsi & Liz left on Sunday afternoon, John, Min and I stayed in the area until Monday arvo.
Yengo is part of the Darkinjung Nation (aka Darkinung or Darkinyung). Traditional story telling says that Biame came down from the skies and first stepped on Yengo Mountain (which is why it has a flat top) and then used the mountains as steppingstones.
November 2 – We started in the Boree Trail area, visiting a couple of well-known sites, plus one that I knew about from a bushwalking friend.
A bit of off track walking on the first day.
We found holes in the rock that we feel have been enhanced over time, you don’t find a round hold like this in nature. Lots of grinding groves around it. This was one of many we found.
We also found what we decided were seed grinding holes. There were many of these we saw over the weekend.
Lots of kangaroo footprint art.
The bush is really pretty on a rainy day (yes, it rained for much of the time).
One of the many caves that we found. I had always assumed that caves with hand stencils in them were “men’s business caves” and I shouldn’t go into them. But then someone told us that sometimes women had their hands stenciled too (but the hand looks different – apparently)
Stencils in the cave, and what looks like an axe.
This was really cool.
Camping near this rock shelf has been on my wish list for many years, we were there to watch the sunset.
When the sun had set, we wandered over to a site and took photos (using a powerful lamp), the engravings show up much better at night.
A caving of a man.
Engraving of a woman.
Another man, with a kangaroo footprint nearby.
Many of the engravings at this site had been “regrooved”, we assume by the Aboriginal Land Council, however, this engraving of a snake only showed up at night.
Two engravings side by side, probably 2 men.
November 3 – todays exploring will take us to a number of spots on John’s map, one of which is a cave that I thought I’d spend the night in … until we found it and discovered it was an aboriginal site, so we decided to find somewhere upstream that wasn’t sacred.
We started with some “dots” off a fire trail. Because we don’t download all the information (it costs a lot to download stuff), we just go to a spot on the map and look around. At this “spot”, there weren’t any engravings, but a suspicious pile of rocks, which wouldn’t have formed naturally. So, this gets documented as a “rock pile” or “stone arrangement”.
I believe this is the remnants of a “scar tree”, where bark would have been taken to make a plate, shield or something. Then again, it might just be an old injury to the tree.
Off into the bush now to look for the cave. there were a few more suspicious stone arrangements, and we suspect it might be that a line of stone arrangements were made that would send someone towards the cave.
We found the cave without any trouble and it was indeed the one that I had considered camping in. Lots of images in the cave, but most difficult to discern.
I thought this one was particularly interesting.
We’re not sure what this one is.
In a small cave adjacent to the bigger one, fabulous weathered stone on the ceiling.
We then drove over to Finchley Aboriginal Art site (which is signposted), and checked out the engravings in the daylight. Then, Vamsi, Jim and Liz left us and we moved around to the campsite (very civilised and a lovely spot to watch the sunset). After dark, we went back to the engraving site to take photos (much better at night).
Engravings with “hair” are spirit beings, or Biame, and this site had many engravings with “hair”.
Two more.
We’re not sure what this is, might be an emu (with 2 legs).
November 4 – We were up pretty early (although not as early as John who went up to the lookout to take some early morning photos). Then we headed over to Murrays Run, about an hour’s drive away. We had information that there were 3 or 4 caves there up on a ridge, so that was the goal for the day. We did find NPWS signs (very, very old), at two or three of the caves, I doubt that anyone has visited these caves (other than locals), in quite some time. We found more than expected though.
Great view of Mt Yengo from the campsite.
Stag (or Elk) horn on one of the rocks up on the ridge. Wish I had this in my garden.
Not sure which cave this was, possibly Wombat Cave
Strange drawing.
Min taking a GPS reading at one of the caves.
Interesting kangaroos in one of the caves (photo John G)
And nice stencils, with what might be a woman’s hand on the far right. (Photo John G).
When exiting from one of the caves, it appeared that we were on a property line where the farmer had use this tree as part of his fence. There was barbed wire around the tree, so Min got out his Swiss army knife to cut it off the tree (we then secreted it under some rocks animals wouldn’t get caught up in it.
Min at the entrance to Maiden’s Cave. this was quite difficult for us to get to, an iffy approach. However, it was one of the best finds! (photo John G)
Maidens cave, figures fornicating. We’ve never seen anything like this before (photo John G).
We were walking along the ridge towards where our car was parked, when we came across, first a pile of dirt that look like it have been bulldozed, and then an area of rock that had been “cleaned up”. The dirt had been removed off the rock, and these holes were revealed. We believe that these are “wells”, they haven’t formed naturally, they’ve been hollowed out, forming some permanent water sources. When I tested the depth, there was around 50 – 75cm of water in each. (photo John G)
And this spot was also revealed, only once before have we found a site with this many sharpening groves. Again, this would have been covered in dirt until the bulldozer removed all the dirt. (photo John G). We’re assuming that the local Aboriginal Land Council organised for these sites to be revealed.
All up, we visited 24 different sites over three days, and there are still ones that we didn’t visit. It’s taken me a while to prepare these photos, we are aware that when taking a photo these days, you can dive into the source file and discover where the photo was taken. We didn’t want to reveal the sites, so I took screen shots of each photo (very time consuming job LOL). And I’ve only given you a selection of what we found. So, I hope you enjoy them and the narrative, big thanks to Jim for organising the trip and to John for letting me tag along.
I think you got Polina mixed up with Liz. Polina had to go home as her friend was injured inan accident.
Ooops, will fix error, that’s what happens when you don’t write the report straight away LOL.
What an utterly amazing report! Astounding images. Extraordinary area. Thank you so very much for this!